Thomas Perry: Dance for the Dead

"Hello, Timmy," she whispered. "Can't sleep?"

"I'm tired, but it's still light, and I keep thinking about them. Mona and Dennis."

"I thought you might want to go to their funeral."

"I did want to, but they said I couldn't."

"So we'll have our own."

The shadows of the trees at the edge of the vast cemetery were already merging into the dusk, but the sky to the west had a reddish glow. Jane had sent two big displays of white roses in case she and Timmy arrived after dark, but the flowers weren't necessary. It was still light enough to find the two fresh graves on the hillside.

The bodies of Dennis and Mona would be shipped to London and Washington for burial, but Jane had searched the funeral notices in the newspaper and found a pair of brothers who had been killed in a car accident and had been buried today. As they walked up the hill Timmy said, "What are we going to do?"

Jane shrugged. "We can only do what we know. The kind of funeral I know best is the kind my family did for my father, my mother, and my grandparents."

They stopped at the head of the graves. Jane said, "One thing we always did was to have close friends or relatives say something to them."

"How?"

"Just talk to them."

Timmy looked down at the two mounds of dirt for a moment, then said, "I don't know what to say."

"Then I'll go first," Jane said. "Dennis and Mona? We're here to say goodbye to you, and to tell you that there are people who know and understand who you were and what you did. We saw it. You spent your lives protecting and caring for people who needed help: little children, and people who were going to court and didn't have anybody to speak for them. You died fighting enemies you knew were bigger and stronger, trying to give us time. We're here because we want you to see that we're okay. You won." She nudged Timmy. "Ready to say something?"

Timmy said, "Mona, I'll... I'll miss you. It's lonely here. I didn't know you weren't coming back. I would have said something..." His voice trailed off.

"What would you have said?" asked Jane.

"I... guess... 'I love you.'"

"That's good."

"And I would have thanked her. But I can't now. It's too late."

"You just did," said Jane. "Those are the two things that had to be said."

Jane knelt on the grass and used her hands to dig a hole in the soft mound of earth over the first grave. Then she reached into her purse.

"What are you doing now?"

"Well, the Old People believed that after somebody died, he had to make a long trip to a place where he would be happy all the time. They figured it took a long time to get there, so they tried to give him presents that would make the trip easier. Weapons, food, that kind of thing."

She held up a new Mont Blanc fountain pen and said, "This is like the one Dennis carried in his briefcase, but the police have that. We'll let it stand for the weapon." She pulled out a credit card and put it beside the pen. "This is the way people travel now."

At the other grave she dug a second hole and placed a credit card and four granola bars in the bottom.

"What's that?" asked Timmy.

"Mona wasn't the sort of person who thought much of weapons. She loved to feed people, so she would like this better." Jane stood and brushed the dirt off her hands. "Now cover them up."

As Timmy worked to pack the dirt over the little holes, Jane went to the car and brought back the birdcage.

"What's in there?"

She took the blouse off the cage and the scrub jays glared around them suspiciously, the white streaks above their shining black eyes looking like raised eyebrows.

"Birds!" said Timmy.

"The Old People did this, so maybe it works." She spoke to the birds. "Mr. and Mrs. Bird, we have the souls here of two very brave and noble people. They had a lot of reasons why they must have wanted to run away from danger, because they loved each other very much, just like you do. But they did the hard thing instead. I want you to carry them up to Hawenneyugeh. Will you do it?"

The birds jumped back and forth on the perches calling "Check-check-check," uneasy about the low level of the sun.

Jane said, "Mona, it's time to go. Have a short trip. You did your work well. You were a wonderful woman." She grasped the female scrub jay gently, holding her on her back and stroking her breast feathers as she stood over the grave, then tossed her into the sky. She fluttered about and then flew fifty feet to light on a limb of a magnolia tree.

Jane reached into the cage again and caught the male. "Dennis," she said, "you were a great fighter. Now I wish you peace. Mona is waiting."

The scrub jay flew up and joined the female on the branch of the magnolia. They looked down at Jane and Timmy for a few seconds as though they wanted to be sure there was no plan afoot to molest them further, then flew off to the west toward either the setting sun or the college campus.

"Goodbye," said Timmy. He waved as the birds flew, and kept waving long after they were invisible.

"Ready to go now?"

"I guess so."

They walked back to the car in silence, got inside, and coasted down the hill and out of the cemetery.

"Do you think they heard us?" asked Timmy.

"There's no way to know," said Jane. "The Old People will tell you that they do. What I think is that it doesn't really matter. Funerals aren't for the dead."

"They're not?"

"They're for us, the ones who have to go on."

"You did all this for me, didn't you?"

"For you and for me." She drove on for a few seconds, then admitted, "But mostly for you. For somebody your age you've seen a lot of heartache. Some of it you don't remember already, but you'll remember this. I wanted to be sure you remember it right."

"What should I remember?"

"That you got to live when there were still heroes. Real heroes that feel scared and bleed, and that's the part that gets left out of the books. That's a privilege. Nobody has to read you a story. You saw it."

"I wish they hadn't done it," said Timmy.

"Me too."

Timmy started to cry. At first it was just a welling of tears, but Jane knew the rest of the tears that he had been too exhausted to cry were behind them. She drove to the freeway and kept going beyond Pasadena into bare and unfamiliar hills. After half an hour Timmy stopped crying, and Jane drove until he spoke again. "What's going to happen? They're all gone."

"You don't have to worry about that, because some very smart people are spending all their time taking care of it. Judge Kramer said the court would study your story, learn all they can about you, and appoint somebody to take care of you."

"Will it be you?"

"No," she said. "It will be a family. Somebody like the people you're staying with now. Are they nice?"

"Yes," he said.

Jane let out a breath before she realized she had been holding it. "Well, I've got to get you back there so you can get some sleep."

"Will I see you?"

"Probably not for a long time."

She drove back to Pasadena and parked behind the street where the policeman and his family lived. She climbed to the top of the fence, lifted Timmy and lowered him to the lawn. She could see that the other two children were still watching television downstairs. She led him to the tree, hoisted him to her back, and climbed. When they walked to the open window, Timmy was seized with a panic. "I don't want you to leave."

"I have to, Timmy," she said.

"But what am I going to do? I mean after you're gone."

Jane hesitated, then accepted the fact that she had to try. "Go to school. Make friends. Play games. Try to grow up strong and decent and healthy. That's plenty to do for now." She helped him in the window and sat on his bed while he put on his pajamas.

"But what happens after that? What will I be then?"